Kansas Baby Car Death: 10-Month-Old Left Behind; Foster Dad Charged

A 10-month-old baby died in a hot car in Wichita, Kansas, as temperatures soared to over 90 degrees Thursday afternoon.

The baby was unresponsive when police and paramedics arrived on the scene after the girl's foster parents called 911. According to local station KAKE, the foster parents estimate she had been left there for between two and two and half hours. One foster parent, 29-year-old Seth M. Jackson, was booked for aggravated child endangerment.

Jackson told police he picked up the girl from the babysitter with his 5-year-old adopted daughter around 4 p.m. CBS affiliate WTSP reported that Jackson's partner, a 26-year-old man who is also a foster parent, was in the backyard when they came home, and assumed the girl was brought inside. The pair said that something on television reminded them of their 10-month-old, and that's when they checked the car, realized the girl was unresponsive, and called 911.

The men have two adopted children, 5 and 7, and four foster children including the 10-month-old who passed away. The adopted children were placed with child services, and the other children have been placed with other family members.

One neighbor, Lindsie Teneyck, told The Wichita Eagle that the men were distraught when police arrived on the scene, and one was "hysterically crying" with his head in his hands.

"They were good people," she said. "This isn’t something that I would see them intentionally doing. That’s not the type of people that they are."

KidsAndCars.org, a nonprofit child safety organization, posted on Twitter that the 10-month-old is the eighteenth child to die this year after being left in a hot car. On average, 38 children die in hot cars each year in the U.S.

Tragically, a child died in a hot car yesterday in Wichita, KS. This is the 18th child this year to die in a hot... http://t.co/8h6BwJJzfw

KWCH reported that the girl's grandmother, who lives in Topeka, visited the parents Friday.

Accidental hot car deaths became a major subject of national conversation in 2009 after the publication of a Washington Post article by Gene Weingarten, "Fatal Distraction," which won a Pulitzer Prize.